Fatty Acid Distillation Plant

Fatty acids segregated from splitting plants are crude and contain 2 to 5 % of glycerides, oligomers and oxidation products. A Fatty Acid Distillation Plant typically maintains 160 - 250 degrees Celsius with a pressure of 2 to 20 milli bars. The product (fatty acids) they produce are of light hues and contain resides. The light ends are cooled, condensed and passed on for further processing and eventual discarding.

The residual matter produced as a result of the continuous distillation process contains a certain amount of fatty acid and may be put to use for low quality productions or re-hydrolyzed and redistilled in batches. These fatty acid distillation plants or towers can produce several fractions of fatty acids based on their differing vapour pressures. They can also be fractionated by low temperature partial crystallization.